“Enough?” the Blodian roared at the top of his lungs. His question ended in a choking cough due to the sulfur.
The overseer waited until he had recovered before nodding vehemently. “All!” he roared back. “All!”
Stifling another cough, Khleeg finally abandoned the building. Outside, as he inhaled the relatively cleaner air, the ogre looked up at the top of the facility. Smoke did rise steadily from the vents, but not nearly as much as was needed.
A score of riders awaited his return, Golgren at the forefront. With one last cough, Khleeg reported, “All ready!”
The Grand Khan dismounted, his guards following suit. Two in the rear ushered forth a prisoner: an Uruv Suurt legionary minus his armor. The horned warrior scowled despite his dire situation.
Khleeg led his lord and the others to where several ogres were stacking new weapons in what seemed at first to be oddly arranged piles. Only as they drew closer did a pattern become visible. The stacks formed a sunburst, an homage to Sirrion, whose fire had allowed them to be cast.
A space ten feet by ten feet filled the center of the pattern. Into the area stepped Golgren. He removed all but his kilt and his sandals, handing his possessions to Khleeg for safekeeping.
The legionary was shoved into the empty space with the Grand Khan.
Khleeg stepped up. “Uruv Suurt … would you like freedom?”
The prisoner snorted. “I am to believe that?”
Golgren’s second in command gave a warning grunt. “If the Grand Khan promises freedom, the promise is kept. But to win it, you must fight him … and slay him.”
The horned soldier eyed Golgren up and down, especially the missing hand. He bared his teeth in the minotaur equivalent of a grin. “Give me but a sword!”
In response, one of the guards handed him a weapon. The legionary studied it, testing its weight. He glanced at Golgren in surprise. “It is my very weapon.”
“To be fair in all ways.” Golgren remarked quietly. The Grand Khan turned. However, rather than receive a blade from one of his followers, he picked out one of the newly crafted swords.
As the Grand Khan turned back to him, the captive legionary went into a battle stance. Golgren waited a breath, and nodded to the minotaur.
The two lunged at one another.
Their blades clanged sharply as they met. The legionary bared his teeth, eager for the kill. The minotaur had no doubt slain more than one ogre in the past and certainly thought that he could handle the slighter, maimed Golgren.
The legionary’s blade came under Golgren’s slash. Suddenly the ogre shoved the oncoming sword down with his own. The horned soldier quickly brought his weapon around in an arc, yet once again the Grand Khan’s was there to block it.
Khleeg and the rest of the ogres remained oddly silent. Other warriors gathered. They watched expectantly.
The pair traded several blows. The minotaur’s eyes were red with effort and fury, his nostrils constantly flaring. He had finally realized his adversary was far more skilled than most ogres.
Golgren nodded, as if he understood and pitied the minotaur’s revelation. He bared his teeth, and suddenly thrust under the legionary’s attack, driving his blade halfway into the other’s chest without striking the ribs.
The legionary let out a choking sound. Blood erupted from his mouth. He dropped his sword and, as Golgren withdrew his own, crumpled to the ground dead.
Those surrounding the two let out low, victorious grunts. Golgren silenced them with a dark glance and stretched forth the bloody sword as far as he could. The Grand Khan held the red tip over one stack of blades.
Golgren spoke in both Common and Ogre. “Tuzun i kalys ifhani! The weapon is the death of the enemy! Tuzun if’han ikalysi! The weapon is the enemy of death!”
A drop of blood fell from the sword to the stack of new blades, staining the top of the pile. As the drop touched, Golgren let out a triumphant grunt and shouted, “Mergos i dura tuzun holoc! Blood has been tasted by the weapon, and it hungers for more!” He moved the red blade over the next stack. “Holoc di sirri! Hungers like fire ever!” Another drop fell, staining the second stack. The blade went to the third. “Du otuzun ibarikis! Let those weapons feed!”
The Grand Khan let a drop fall on each stack. When he was done, he set the blade, still soaked, atop the body of the legionary and stepped away from the center.
Two warriors turned the corpse on its back, making certain that the blade remained on top of the body, and carried the Uruv Suurt to the building where the forge ever burned.
Golgren signaled other warriors to gather up the stacks of blades. They did so eagerly.
“The swords are blessed,” Golgren explained to Khleeg. “They will find their targets well.” The Grand Khan changed the subject. “The hand will be ready in three days, yes?”
“Yes, my lord. They will march well and as you command.”
Golgren started to nod, but Wargroch came riding up. The younger officer wore a troubled expression.
With a nimble leap for one of his girth, the Blodian dismounted and made his way to his ruler. As was his way, Wargroch dropped down on one knee.
“Speak,” Golgren quietly commanded.
“Great one!” Wargroch visibly steeled himself should he be punished for the bad news that he was bringing. “No birds bring message from the hand of Vorag. Cragur sends word that he cannot find the warriors.”
Another hand was missing.
“Khleeg,” Golgren began slowly, his eyes narrowed slightly, but his expression otherwise emotionless. “The hand must march tomorrow.”
His second in command was too wise to argue. “My lord.”
Golgren eyed the weapons being handed out to the warriors around them. “And I will lead them.”
All that Khleeg did was nod.
V
The guards no longer actively watched Idaria. Indeed, in many respects, they treated her almost as though she were Golgren’s queen. The elf maiden made good use of their lax attitudes toward her. All Idaria’s arduous work, her suffering, seemed to have finally paid off. She could pursue her true task.
She had given up her hard-fought freedom and cast herself into slavery. Idaria had done so in the hopes that she might somehow bring the freedom she had sacrificed to those of her people who had been enslaved by the ogres. With the help of other agents, she had maneuvered herself into the position of the Grand Lord’s favorite slave. It had meant dishonors that many others would have been unable to suffer and survive, but Idaria had managed to bury a part of herself deep inside, so that there was always something those shames could never reach and poison.
But she was also confident in those with whom she had made her bargain. True, they were not elves, but it behooved them to follow through on their promises. For by aiding her, they aided their own cause.
The slave moved effortlessly through Golgren’s chambers, the heavy bracelets on her wrists and ankles hindering her little. She, who knew him best, had not been entirely startled when Golgren had refused to have the links reforged. She believed his promise that he would free her people and was certain that he still would do so … when it served him best.
The silver-haired elf went to a window near the bed and softly sang. Yet it was no human or elf song that escaped her perfect lips, but rather the trill of a bird.
Mere seconds later, a small, feathered form alighted on the sill. The bird sang a few notes of the same song. It was one of her messengers, her avian friends through whom she made regular contact beyond Garantha. With Golgren away, it was the perfect time to send one of her missives.
“Thank you for taking it,” she murmured to the bird as she placed a tiny note in a small container around the creature’s leg. What the avians did for her was done at great risk to themselves, and she very much appreciated their bravery. Idaria had always prided herself on her rapport with birds, hints that she was perhaps favored by Astarin-or, as humans called him, Branchala-the god of song and life, and thus also the god of the woods and the songbirds who thrived in forests.